THE OLD INDIAN SETTLEMENTS AND ARCHITECTURAL 

 STRUCTURES IN NORTHERN CENTRAL AMERICA. 1 



By Dr. Cakl, Sapper. 



The ruins of northern Central America have for some time past 

 enlisted the attention of large numbers of scholars, their scientific 

 investigation having, in fact, begun more than a century ago. (Antonio 

 del Rio in Palenque, 1787.) Nevertheless, we possess but few accurate 

 accounts of old Indian towns and edifices, and a complete series of 

 important new studies can not probably be expected for several 

 years to come. Such are the accounts of ruins in Yucatan by E. 

 Thompson and T. Maler, the thorough exploration of the ruins of 

 Palenque by A. Maudslay, and of the ruins of Copan by an American 

 commission, the plans of Comalcalco aud Menche Tenamit, drawn by 

 engineers of the Mexican Boundary Commission, and others, of the 

 ruins on the table-land of Guatemala and Chiapas, although deserving 

 as much interest as the majority of the lowland ruins; only very few 

 have as yet been examined more thoroughly. I can recall here, besides 

 Stephens's 2 descriptions, only the examination of Iximche by Dr. Gus- 

 tav Briihl, 3 and thus I am compelled in my statements mainly to rely 

 on my own observations. Now, although these are generally nothing 

 more than the result of hasty visits and of rough sketches of the single 

 j)laces wliere ruins are found, I can not but hope that they may be of 

 some interest, since I have made myself personally familiar with some 

 examples of old Indian towns — settlements and edifices in almost every 

 one of the separate ethnographic districts. 4 I must mention here that 

 I have not examined these ruins with the eye of the artist or the archi- 

 tect, but as a geographer, desiring to establish the characteristic pecu- 

 liarities of the shapes adopted in building towns and rearing houses, as 



'Translated from Globus, Vol. LXVIII, Nos. 11 and 12, 1895. 



5 J. Stephens, Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan, Lon- 

 don, 1854, page 313 ff, 331, 365, 383 if. 



-Globus, LXVI, page 213 ff. 



4 In the territory of thoMije and Xinca tribes of Aztec and Zapotec origin I have 

 observed only a few unimportant building ruins, and shall therefore pay little atten- 

 tion to them in this essay. 



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